Getting into Varsity: Comparability, Convergence and Congruence

Abstract

In the course of editing submissions for our first book, 'Secondary School External Examination Systems: Reliability, Robustness and Resilience', it transpired that the university admission function of terminating school assessment has largely eclipsed the school-leaving certification aspect in systems where the two go together. But it is not only students from education systems which have curriculum-based external examinations at the culmination of schooling who aspire to enter university. Once the preserve of the well-heeled classes, university education has become to today's middle-class youngster what a high school certificate was to preceding generations at the same stage of life. Be it the demands of the 'knowledge society' or merely credential inflation, a great many young people now regard tertiary education as the means by which to realise their ambitions. Schooling has become a stepping-stone to post-school - increasingly, university - education and training. This edited volume accordingly focuses on the transition from school to university. Securing the general right to enter university may only be a first step. Individual universities may impose their own entrance requirements, particularly in the case of competitive-entry programmes. In some systems, a student may be able to enrol in selective faculties directly upon making the transition from school; in others, there may be a significant lapse of time separating general university admission and enrolment in a desired field via 'pre' courses or even first degrees in related fields. Universities and constituent departments and faculties of universities have long conducted their own entrance testing regimes, often involving factors other than the applicants' purely academic ability. Given the importance of securing the 'right' tertiary education, students are becoming more choosy about which university they attend. This can present problems in federal entities with a multiplicity of education systems within their borders, especially when divergence in end-of-school assessment procedures has occurred to the point where the establishment of comparability among the constituent entities is less than straightforward. The cross-border portability of university admission credentials is addressed through the inclusion of several such national systems. In broad terms, there are two kinds of university admission systems: those in which upper secondary school qualifications explicitly confer the right to enrol at university and those in which they do not.